(no subject)

[desperance]

megmccarron just posted about Borderlands, an SF bookshop in San Francisco with a hairless cat (feeling like "a weird living peach", apparently - this I like). So happens a couple of friends of mine were in San Francisco a few weeks back, and sent me a photo of copies of 'Bridge of Dreams' in the window of a bookshop with a hairless cat, only they couldn't remember the name. Problem solved. I do love synchronicity. And bookshops. And cats, tho' I am a little concerned about the hairlessness. Bald is good on men (trust me: I am of the shaven-headed ilk), but cats and fur go together so well... (Barry has little bald patches, where his scars are; mostly they don't show, only when you're playing rough - or he is - and then you get to sneer and call him names.)

In other news: yesterday I unwrote 3,677 words, and the book is shorter as a result. It may also be better; I am a profound believer in cutting for art and meaning. I can also cut for length, but I hate that. At the moment, I think it's all benefit (tho' I do feel my editor's relief, at every word that goes).

Rewrites for me are a two-stage process, reading hard copy with a pen in hand and scribbling wildly all over it, then interpreting that at the keyboard (and, of course, rereading on screen as I go, finding other things I want to change or lose). Mostly, though, what I'm doing both ways comes down to simplifying. Not the story, nor the characters: just the language. I can be terribly (and I do mean terribly) hi-falutin in first draft. I keep thinking I've cured myself, but then I read something through and nope, there it is again: all that lofty stuff, heading for the Higher Literature when often what I need is low prose.

Yesterday I chewed my way through fifty pages, and lost nine of them, hurrah! Today has not been a good day, for numerous reasons, so there's going to be no keyboard work at all; I'm just going to sit at my big window downstairs, open a bottle of wine, read and scribble and not be at all distracted by all the pretty young people wandering by with not many clothes on. Honest.

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Sweetheart, if I'd known you were wondering about that bookshop, I would have suggested you consult your website...

I'm glad to hear that the unwriting is stuttering along merrily (it gives a whole new meaning to the expression "unwritten masterpiece", doesn't it?).

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, see, that's the thing about having a wonder for a webmistress; she's always ahead of me, and I can never hope to catch up. [Blushes, but not too hard: it is not, in any actual sense, my website. It's a site about my work, which is why I'm allowed to say how brilliant it is...]

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

*also blushes*